Shattered Dreams (6 page)

“Submarines, Eddie. I think that’s how I began to lose my eyesight. Being under water for long periods makes a body think they’re a mole.”

There was a titter of polite laughter from Charlie’s daughters and Eddie, but all of them felt compassion for the man.

“And are you going to be old-fashioned, Eddie, and ask me for permission to wed my daughter?”

“Of course, Sir, that’s why I’m here today to ask for your daughter’s hand.”

“I’m sure whoever our Irene falls in love with will make her happy. She’s a practical girl with a good head on her shoulders and won’t have chosen the first man who came along. Come here both of you and let me give you my blessing.”

He took both their hands in his and gave them a wry smile.

The couple looked upon him sadly. Though Eddie had never seen him before, the man seemed to be wasting away. He’d heard from Irene that Charlie had never been robust after having spent a long time underwater marooned in a submarine, when the propeller had got stuck in a sand bank out in Liverpool Bay. It was a wonder the man was still living as he took huge gulps of breath and turned his head fretfully towards the open window. Though the day was fairly mild, the room was rather chilly, not helped at all by the miserable fire in the fireplace.

“Can I get you a blanket, Papa?” asked Irene, perturbed by the racking coughing spell that had followed his gulping and the thinness of his features since she had seen him last.

“If you would, Irene. I don’t seem to be able to get warm nowadays.”

“Sit down, Irene, I’ll go and get him one,” said Isabel, who had brought in a tray. “You and Eddie drink the tea I’ve made you. There’s a blanket in the lobby that I can fetch him.”

A noise from the back kitchen made Eddie and Irene prick up their ears.

“It’s your mother coming in with Robert,” gasped Charlie. “Don’t tell her that I’ve had a coughing fit or she’ll have me taken to hospital. I had to sleep down here last night because I was keeping her awake with my breathing.”

“We won’t say anything, Papa,” Irene promised sadly. “But maybe you should be in hospital after all.”

Lily Wilson, a woman in her late fifties, came stomping through to the living room in an old pair of men’s socks, with a grubby blue mackintosh over her ankle length dress. She still had a floppy woollen hat on over her grey tangled hair and she looked askance when she saw she had visitors.

“Irene,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming today? I only saw you yesterday, you could have told me then.”

“I thought I’d bring over my fiancé to meet you, Mother. This is Eddie.”

“Caught me on the hop, haven’t you? It would have been far better if you had told me yesterday and then I could have got something in.”

“We’ve got a seed cake that I baked yesterday, Mother, and a batch of scones that I made this morning.”

“Yes, Isabel, I know that,” Lily snapped. “But I’m sure Mr Dockerty is used to something a little grander, with him coming from a better class of family.”

“Mother!” said Irene, feeling uncomfortable with her mother’s attitude towards Eddie, though understanding as she knew that Lily herself had been born into a well-to-do family.

“I’m sure I didn’t come here to be fed on the fat of the land, Mrs Wilson,” said Eddie smiling congenially. “I came to meet my future family and I love to eat seed cake, it’s my favourite food.”

“Huh,”said Lily, though she began to feel mollified, seeing he was a handsome chap without any airs and graces. “I’ll go and get Robert, he’s in the garden. I’ve got to get those potatoes in while there’s a bit of sun around.”

“I’m here, Lily,” shouted Robert, Isabel’s husband, from the kitchen.“I’ll just bring us a couple of teas in and we’ll put our feet up for a little while.”

“No time for putting our feet up, Robert. Get in here and meet Irene’s fiancé and then we’ll get back to it, shall we?”

Robert came into the room. A big strong man, whilst Isabel was little and normally dainty. He had to duck to walk under the lintel before he greeted Eddie with a ready smile.

“Slave driver your mother,” he said to Irene. “Has me working from dawn to sunset, all day and every day.”

“Rubbish,” snorted Lily. “I was up at six this morning, while you were turning over in your comfy bed.”

“Mother, before you go back to the garden, can I ask you and Dad something?”

Irene wanted the question of Eddie’s accommodation sorted, before her mother got stuck into the garden again.

“Yes?” Lily asked, one eyebrow raised in question.“What is it, you’re not in the family way?”

“Lily,” tutted Charlie reproachfully. “There’s no need to take that tone, she’s been a good daughter.”

“I’m only asking because she wouldn’t be the first daughter to tell me that she was expecting.” She looked meaningfully at Isabel, who was expecting her third child.

“I wanted to ask you if Eddie could move in here with you? He’s had a falling out with his father and wants to find some work locally. It will only be until his father says he’s sorry for the way he’s treated Eddie, but I thought he could have my old room, especially with Isabel and Robert moving soon.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Lily, pretending to consider the situation, but ready to jump at the chance of another strong muscled body. “It must have been a big row for your father to throw you out, Eddie.”

“It wasn’t a big row, Mother. It was a misunderstanding, which I’m sure Mr Dockerty will apologise for when he’s thought it through.”

“He didn’t throw me out, Mrs Wilson,”said Eddie quietly. “I walked out because he had made a promise, then didn’t keep it. A man’s word is his bond as far as I’m concerned.”

“Very well, you can move in with us, but Irene you’ll stay put at your Aunty’s. I’m not having people thinking I’m running a bawdy house with all the comings and goings here.”

“Shall I help Isabel with making afternoon tea then, Mother?” Irene felt so relieved she wanted to kiss her stony-faced mother, but knew that the physical contact wouldn’t be welcome. Mother kept everyone at arm’s length if she could.

“Of course you can, Irene. Eddie can sit and keep your father company. Robert, two more of those trenches will do it, then I think I’ll set up my stall again on Monday.”

Irene stood behind the clock and watch counter at the Co-op, looking with pleasure at the little ‘wigwag’ clocks she had been allowed to order. They were charming time pieces. Each clock face had it’s own character; a smiling clown, a marionette, a Cheshire cat or a leaping frog and underneath set in a small casing was a pendulum that merrily swung from side to side like a happy dog wagging its tail. The supervisor, an old man in his sixties, had told her that they wouldn’t sell, but had given in to pleas of ordering some to prove to Irene how wrong she was. But the box she had just opened was the third in three weeks to be delivered, they had been selling like hot cakes at one pound, six shillings and nine pence.

It was only ten minutes away from her lunch break and Irene planned to eat her canteen meal of fried fish and mashed potatoes as quickly as she could, then amble around the market to look for a present for Isabel’s new baby. Isabel had given birth to a daughter only days after she and her husband had moved into the rented house in Southport. Eddie and Irene were planning to visit that weekend.

The ping of the lift signalled that it had stopped at the first floor and a lady who looked to be in her late forties walked along to Irene’s counter. She began to look into the display cabinet where Irene had placed a small array of wristlet watches on a satin covered tray. The lady was very smart in a blue, lightweight, ankle-length dress, a matching long-sleeve jacket, white cotton wrist-length gloves, white high heel pumps and a matching handbag. Her short shingled hair was pushed under a white crocheted hat.

Irene cleared her throat nervously. This was a woman who looked as if she was used to having the very best of everything, but the wristlet watches were eighteen carat gold, so Irene thought it would be helpful to point that out.

“Excuse me, Madam, may I help you? Those wristlet watches are the very latest from London, eighteen carat gold and very expensive, naturally. Would you like to try one on, Madam?”

“I haven’t actually come to purchase a watch, young lady,” the woman replied haughtily, her face grimacing in distaste as she looked at the shop girl before her.

“I’ve been told that Irene Wilson works on this floor and I would like to give a message to her.”

“I’m Irene Wilson, Madam,” Irene said, wondering who this elegant woman was, though it was beginning to dawn on her who she might be.

“I believe you may be able to get a message to my son. I’m Mrs Dockerty. Could you please tell Eddie that his father is ill and it’s imperative that he comes back home to be with him. Thank you Miss Wilson.” With that Irene’s future mother-in-law walked back to wait for the lift.

She was left with a feeling of disbelief. What an arrogant woman. She had known that Irene was Eddie’s intended, but she couldn’t even be bothered to make some kind of effort towards her.

Irene, who was always slow to anger, felt her face begin to go hot and her body trembled with emotion. Give Eddie a message indeed. Who did his mother think she was, a telegraph woman?

It spoilt her day. The pleasure she’d had when she saw that her wigwags were selling and picking out a present for the baby didn’t make up for the distress she felt by meeting Eddie’s mother in the way she had. She was still feeling bitter as she climbed onto the bus that evening to Wallasey. No one deserved that kind of treatment just because she was the girlfriend of her son.

Eddie wasn’t in when she got back to Peartree Cottage. No one was at home, but her mother had left a note on the kitchen table saying that her Dad had been rushed into hospital, as he couldn’t get his breath. All thoughts of the sour-faced woman flew out of Irene’s head as she ran the mile and a half to Victoria Hospital, only to find when she got there that her lovely father was dead.

Her mother was inconsolable. She babbled inconsequentially of how she had never loved him enough, how she hadn’t really wanted to marry him because she had been in love with somebody else. Irene put it down to the grief that mother was feeling, after watching her terrified husband trying to get air into his lungs. She brought her mother back home in a taxi, which both could ill afford.

Eddie was waiting for them on their return, neatly scrubbed from his ablutions in the water butt outside. Peartree Cottage had neither bathroom, gas or electricity and kettles had to be boiled on the kitchen fire if anyone wanted a wash. He had known something was wrong because he had seen Lily’s note when he had got in from work. He couldn’t read the note because Eddie couldn’t read, having spent a lot of time as a truant in his childhood, but he knew the word Irene at the beginning and Mother at the end.

He made the two sobbing women a comforting cup of tea, then set about frying eggs and bacon for everyone’s supper. Irene and Lily said they couldn’t eat, but Eddie insisted that they ate something, because they would need to keep their strength up over the next few days.

After they had finished their meal and Lily decided she would go to her bedroom, Irene suddenly remembered that she had promised her Aunt Miriam that she would be home on the ten o’ clock bus.

“Eddie,” she cried. “I can’t leave my mother, I won’t be able to go to work tomorrow either, but Aunt Miriam will be worrying where I’ve got to. Oh I wish we had a telephone.”

“I’ll go if you want and stay at your aunt’s tonight, then if you write me a note I’ll drop it through the Co-op letterbox on my way to work in the morning. They’ll understand why you’ve not gone in.”

“Oh thank you, Eddie, and what shall we do about Isabel, she’ll have to be told that Papa has gone?”

“You’ll have to send her a letter or maybe we could tell her together when we go over on Sunday.”

“I don’t know what to do, Eddie. I suppose a letter will be a shock to her, though, so perhaps we’ll wait until Sunday. You’re such a comfort, Eddie, thanks.” She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Well I suppose I’d better be off then. Strange to be going back to the village and not seeing my parents anymore.”

“Eddie, oh Eddie, I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten to give you a message. Your mother came into the store today and told me to tell you that your father’s ill.”

“How did my mother know you worked at the Co-op?” asked Eddie, puzzled. “I’ve never told anyone where you were working or if I had I would have told them it was at the Saltbury’s store.”

“I don’t know how things get round, Eddie, but it was definitely your mother, though I thought she was rather rude.”

“No, it’s just her way, Irene. My Mum is a lovely person, but she can be like that with people she doesn’t know. One day you’ll grow to love her like I do, I’m sure.”

Mmm
, thought Irene.
His mother is all fur coat and no knickers as far as I’m concerned.

Eddie set off to travel to Aunt Miriam’s by walking along the roads to Woodside Terminus, as it was light enough to see in the middle of July. He wanted to have some time to think about his mother’s message. It must be his father’s ticker that was giving him trouble: too many fags, too much alcohol and not enough exercise. His father never walked anywhere, everywhere he went was by car. How would the old man receive him if he turned up just for a visit? Probably throw something at him for leaving him in the lurch.

Eddie had got himself a job at a scrap metal merchants. The boss, Gerry Fielden, put him in charge of the float money. Two other men went ahead of the scrap wagon knocking on doors to drum up trade. Then Eddie would appear and pay the housewife for her rags, or her old dolly tub, copper boiler or mangle, paying as much as five shillings for a mangle because in some of the better off areas they were very much in demand. At the end of the day, the scrap metal and rags were weighed in the yard and each man then received their pay. The work took Eddie around the posher areas of the Wirral and sometimes he went through the Mersey tunnel to Liverpool.

He missed the familiar tinkle of trowels, though, the sound he’d grown up with since he was a boy. Sometimes if he passed a building site, he would stop the wagon and watch the brickies at their work. Maybe he’d been hasty, should he give it another go, perhaps his father was sorry and he’d move back home again?